GameStorm14: A GeekMom’s Diary, Day 2

It's a game of Fiasco! The dice determine if outcomes to situations and scenes are positive or negative. (Photos by Cathe Post)

Dear Diary,

After a wonderful night of sound sleep, I hit the ground with full hit points this Saturday morning. I was signed up for a game of Fiasco this morning that I didn’t think I was going to make the cut to play. Three people ahead of me on the sign-up sheet didn’t show, so I was in! As usual, this game lives up to the name. The game is much more about role-playing a scenario in scenes and acts (like a movie) than about dice rolling and winning. Though, the dice do play a huge part in setting relationships, needs, locations, and objects in your fiasco of a film. (I hope my kids, and yours, don’t read my diary for today beyond this point.)

My Fiasco group.

The scenario we played was the Suburbs. My character was 21-year-old Michelle McCall. The guy in the red shirt on the right in the picture above (we’ll call him Todd, because that was his character’s name) ended up being my 17-year-old step-son. Todd is an MBA student who is manager of Tile World. Todd’s dad (my current husband) is always away on business. My ex-husband, 22-year-old Aaron (on the left), left me and took my dog to be with Alfanzo (in the middle). Alfanzo is 50 years old, and has worked at Tile World since he was a kid. His father started the company.

My ex-husband, Aaron, goes on a spree with his boyfriend of burning things like my step-son’s car and a dumpster behind Tile World, in an effort to frame me or my step-son and reclaim Tile World for Alfanzo’s family. After Aaron leaves the dog’s tag as evidence at the scene of an arson, I confront him only to be hit over the head with a steam-engine-shaped bong and am left with permanent brain damage and wheelchair-bound. Oh — and my character also ended up in a romantic relationship with my step-son. Part of my “worst-possible-outcome” included my husband coming home to me in a wheelchair and confronting me about a pregnancy and miscarriage.

Fiasco always leaves character’s luck up to the dice. All of the players/actors are equally scrutinized as each person takes turns setting/resolving scenes. Even though I have now played the Suburb scenario a couple of times, it was different and fun. Even playing with people I had never met before was an interesting and not-too-disturbing experience.

A typical Grimoire set-up

I was excited to play a game run by Roy Starkweather of Dice Age Games, my home-town game store. He ran a game called Grimoire which is played by picking a spell from your spell book, and then doing what the spell says plus taking a card from the game board. The object of the game is to have the most points from gathering loot, characters, and victory points. Spells allow you to pick on the other players by changing the order players play in, taking things from other players, or silencing other players spells. It was a fairly quick play, which I really like. I would recommend Grimoire to anyone who is looking for an addition to their party game collection.

Dragon Dice are like Warhammer with dice instead of miniatures.

Games I didn’t get to play today, but did watch, were also worth mentioning. Dragon Dice was played throughout the weekend and seemed to always have full sign-up sheets. I have played it before over at Dice Age. The closest game I can compare it to is Warhammer, but with dice instead of miniatures. The dice come in different armies and have rare and common dice, just like other collectible games. It is also a fun game that I would like to play again sometime, especially since it takes less time than a game of Warhammer!

World of Warcraft: The Collectible Card Game

Another game of note is another Cryptozoic Entertainment game that I didn’t realize was as old as it is: World of Warcraft Wow Trading Card Game. I played through a starter hunter deck and a professionally-built hunter deck and had a blast trying to figure out how the game was similar and different from Magic: the Gathering and Pokémon. It was hard to get used to the one main difference of being able to do as many actions as I could afford per turn, in any order I wanted. It took some getting used to.

Tomorrow is the last day of GameStorm14. I wonder what games I will stumble onto tomorrow?

Cathé Post can be found playing Pokémon, D&D, or a good board game with her husband if she isn't chasing her two kids and four cats.